Tatum O’Neal: “The Dog Ate My Willpower!”

The New York Post is reporting that Tatum O’Neal, who was arrested in New York on Sunday after allegedly buying rock cocaine, blamed her slip in judgment on the recent passing of her Scottish terrier, Lena.

“That seemed to set me off,” O’Neal said of the 16-year-old dog’s death, which occurred three weeks ago. “It triggered that my mother passed away [from addiction] in ’98. My father [actor Ryan O’Neal] and I are estranged.”

Of course, O’Neal, who chronicled her history of addiction and abuse in her 2004 autobiography, A Paper Life, initially told cops she was buying the rock for “research,” according to reports.

So, who knows if she even really had a dog? The animal might have been some sort of 16-year-long, crack-driven hallucination on Tate’s part.

The actress, who will have a year of sobriety under her belt on July 10, declared herself “eternally grateful” that the bust prevented her from doing “what my disease was telling me to do…I was saved by the bell, by the guys in the 7th Precinct.”

Let’s just hope her pet goldfish doesn’t kick it anytime soon and throw her into the path of temptation yet again.